


Avatar: the Unusual Crimes Task Force

by Eva



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Avatar: the Legend of Korra crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva/pseuds/Eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock characters in the Avatar: the Legend of Korra universe, fighting crime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avatar: the Unusual Crimes Task Force

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone on Tumblr who read, enjoyed, and let me play around until I found out what it was I wanted to do!

***

Sherlock’s lips were thin, and his face was paler than usual.  ”They’re not suicides,” he said tersely, and left the morgue in a rush.  Molly stared at John, her mouth open, but there wasn’t anything to say, really.

They were suicides.  Four different people who had taken, chewed, swallowed a poisonous pill.  Anyone could see it; John could see it clearly, and so could Molly.  Greg marched after Sherlock, and John said a quick goodbye to Molly before he followed them out.

“The swelling is consistent—” Sherlock cut himself off as John joined them, and stared at the ceiling.  Greg was staring at the floor, his jaw tight.

“Right,” John said.  ”What’s happening?”

“We’ll have to report to the Chief,” Greg said, and rolled his eyes hard when Sherlock tried to argue.  ”Sherlock, shut up.  We have to report it before we can receive clearance to take this case.”

“We have clearance!” Sherlock snapped, darting a glance at John and then glaring fiercely at Greg again.  ”She’s not an idiot; she drew her own conclusions before she gave this one to us.  Or did you think Lin of all people would miss the moon connection?”

“You have evidence now, and that has to be presented to the Chief, if not the Council.”

“Excuse me, but can I be brought into this argument?” John asked wearily.  Greg and Sherlock both looked down at their feet, then up to each other, and then away.  ”Ah.  Still not officially on the team, then, am I?”

“The Chief is dragging her feet,” Greg admitted, sighing and raking his hair back from his forehead.  ”She doesn’t want to put more civilians into danger.”

Sherlock had gone very still, but he smiled suddenly, mirthlessly.  ”There are signs in the bodies of the victims that show they were bloodbent.”

Greg looked horrified.  ”Sherlock!”

“We’d better keep that information strictly to the task force, don’t you think?”  Sherlock smiled.  ”Let’s do check in with Lin, and get John on the roster.”

“She’s hardly going to let us chase down a bloodbender, Sherlock,” Greg hissed, looking around nervously at the doors.

“She doesn’t have a choice,” Sherlock said flatly.  ”She lacks any connections to the city’s Water Tribe descendants.  I’m her best bet, and you’ll have to be around to make it official, won’t you?”

“I’m still chopped liver, then,” John added under his breath.

***

The official Unusual Crimes Task Force was composed of Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan, Consultant Sherlock Holmes, Doctor John Watson, and Doctor Molly Hooper, overseen by Police Chief Lin Beifong and the Task Force Adjunct to the Republic City Council (who went unnamed, but was revealed by Sherlock’s scowl and Greg’s bright grin at said scowl to be Mycroft Holmes).

The Chief looked tired.  ”Then it is the work of a bloodbender?”

“The swelling in the joints is consistent with all literature gathered on victims of bloodbending,” Sherlock said, pacing behind Greg and John, who were both standing at attention in front of her desk.  ”There’s your beyond circumstantial evidence.  Now I have to track down a bloodbender—”

“You will report directly to your brother,” the Chief interrupted, her voice hard.  ”I want a list of possible suspects before you hare off on some ridiculous attempt at an investigation, Mr. Holmes.  And if you should happen to encounter any suspect at all when Detective Inspector Lestrade is not with you, you are absolutely forbidden to engage.  Do not argue with me!” 

Sherlock, who had been about to, shut his mouth and subsided at her sudden roar.  John blinked, but Greg hadn’t so much as flinched.  If anything, he looked a bit sad.

“You have no experience with bloodbending, Mr. Holmes,” the Chief said coldly, standing up behind her desk.  Her glare was icier than any even Sherlock had managed to deliver.  ”Detective Inspector Lestrade has some small amount—”

John looked over at Greg quickly, who again had not reacted.

“—and can be trusted to act with a caution you have never been known for.  I will not have this bloodbender, this murderer, escape because his abilities have been underestimated.”

“Understood,” Sherlock said.  Granted, John hadn’t known him very long, but it seemed very out of character for him to acquiesce so readily.  And what experience had Greg had with bloodbending?

“List of possible suspects, motives, and methods of choosing victims,” the Chief said, shifting her gaze along each of the three men.  ”I want all three before the next full moon, gentlemen.  Mr. Holmes is expecting you, and Detective?”

“Yes, Chief,” Greg said instantly.

“This Task Force is your responsibility,” she said coolly.  ”Keep it under control, or expect a demotion at best.”

“Yes, Chief.”

Sherlock’s face was twisted into a mutinous glare, but he bowed shortly to Chief Beifong before stalking out.  John nodded and hurried out after him, and Greg followed.  The metal door clanged shut behind them.

***

Mycroft, who had at one time been groomed to become the Southern Water Tribe’s Representative at the Council, had lists of families with Water Tribe ancestry, but there was little enough to gain from that: with marriages between nations and a near-constant stream of Water Tribe descendants moving into and out of the city, there were just too many people.  ”And there isn’t much more to be learned in examining the victims,” he added, sitting on the edge of his desk.  ”They’ve been citizens of the city and visitors, of varied descent, age, and gender.  Nothing to link them but that they were killed here.”

“By a bloodbender,” Sherlock added, bending some water out of the fountain bubbling to itself in the corner of Mycroft’s office.  John watched him turn it into a globe of ice, and then back into water again.  ”By a waterbender, like us.”

“Like us,” Mycroft agreed softly.  He looked pale and tired, but he smiled at John, as if feeling the scrutiny.

“I didn’t think bloodbending was a common skill among waterbenders,” John said.  ”Why can’t you narrow it to masters of waterbending?”

“Metalbending wasn’t common either, a hundred years ago,” Mycroft said.

“People have heard about bloodbending now.  It’s part of the city’s history,” Sherlock explained impatiently, bending the water into a whip and striking at Greg, who bent a large stone slab from near the door that led out to the garden to defend himself.  This was something they did almost as often as they argued over policing procedures, and John didn’t react—yet.  If Sherlock decided to practice on him, then he’d find himself chi-blocked.  ”So they know it’s possible, and some are perverted enough to try it.”

“Over the past five years, two waterbenders have been arrested for offering to teach bloodbending,” Mycroft added.  Sherlock directed his whip at him, and Mycroft bent the water away from him, moving in the heavier, more stylized movements of traditional waterbending.  Sherlock bent like a pro-bender; quick and light on his feet, with a remarkable economy of movement that he made up for in force.  Mycroft wasn’t as comfortable or natural in fighting.  ”Don’t think for a moment their students weren’t rounded up as well.”

“So you’ve still got someone who’s a master waterbender, because he’d have had to teach himself bloodbending, right?” John persisted.  

“Someone who moves comfortably around the city, who can get people isolated without bending,” Greg added, finally speaking up.  ”People who are bloodbent don’t move normally; someone would be bound to notice.”

“Right, someone who has mastered waterbending, is willing to experiment with bloodbending, and is yet trusted enough by complete strangers that they’ll wander off with him,” John concluded.  This was followed by a complete, deafening silence, as the Holmes brothers both froze.

Sherlock stared at Mycroft, who looked back at him blandly.  ”How far did they travel?”

“What?”  Greg and John shared a glance, because why not?

“How far from where the victims were last seen were the crime scenes?” Sherlock demanded, but he wasn’t bored now.  He was almost wriggling with excitement, and Mycroft started pulling out his files, calling loudly for Anthea.

“Some a block, some a few miles,” Greg said.  ”But the times are—”

“Never mind that!”  Sherlock spun around and laughed to himself, his fingers tented and up to his mouth.  ”He has to get them isolated without bending, you said it yourself.  How does he get them isolated?  How does he get them to come with him to someplace isolated?”

“Yes, that is the question,” John said, and rolled his eyes at Sherlock’s disappointed stare.  ”Stop being dramatic and just out with it, please.”  

“He drives them,” Sherlock said, at last standing still.  ”He takes them in a Sato-mobile.  Furthermore, gentlemen, he doesn’t offer them the ride—they ask him.  They choose him.  Our murderer—”

“—drives a taxi, we get it,” Greg interrupted, but he was smiling a little now.  ”Don’t drag it too far; it doesn’t seem as clever when you lead us through all the deductions.”

***

Sherlock hadn’t gotten up from his sprawl on the low sofa in their flat, half-wrapped in a blanket that must have come from cousins back in the South Pole.  John was looking through the notes Mycroft had sent them and listening to a pro-bending match on the radio, wincing for the Platypus Bears.

“She’ll cut us out at the end.”

“Sorry?” John said, looking up.  ”Forty-three suspects.  I didn’t realise so many Water Tribe folk went into the taxi business.”

“Unless we’re healers or sailors, we tend to be overlooked for much else,” Sherlock said dryly.  ”Until something goes wrong with the weather.  Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom descendants had most of the land in the first place, and went on to monopolise industry and policing.”

“They’ve been correcting that,” John said, a bit nettled.  His family was a mix of all three: Earth, Fire, and Water, and he was aware that both the Earth and Fire members had been considerably better off than his Water Tribe relatives historically.  ”Besides, the Water Tribe was pretty heavily represented politically—”

“—until Tarrlok and Amon,” Sherlock interrupted, and stretched.  ”And as we’re recovering from that, we’ve got our new bloodbending serial killer.  If cooler heads don’t prevail, Water Tribe is going to have difficulties.”

He sat up in a flurry of limbs, somehow getting the blanket up with him without strangling himself in the process, and began to brood.  John sighed and turned back to the radio, listening glumly to the announcer reporting that the Platypus Bears had lost round two.

“What I was saying is Lin’s going to cut us out at the end,” Sherlock said, jumping up to pace.  ”We won’t even get a look at our murderer.”

“Not ours, I hope,” John said, and turned off the radio.  Sherlock wanted an audience, and his team was losing dismally.  ”Why do you want to see him?”

“Why does he do it?” Sherlock asked, and whirled around to loom over John.  ”Why murder someone you don’t even know?  And again and again, so obviously?  Even if we didn’t know the signs of bloodbending, that each murder took place during a full moon would have been reason enough to suspect.”

“He doesn’t like people?” John guessed wearily.  ”I’m sure the Chief will get some answers—”

“He wanted to be noticed, John,” Sherlock said, and squatted, so that he was staring up at John.  ”He wanted to be discovered.  He wants people to know that he’s out there, a bloodbender, and that they aren’t safe.”

“So he’s a terrorist.”

Sherlock sucked in a breath and held it, tapping his fingers against his lips.  ”But it’s risky.  It’s too risky.  He isn’t leaving them in public; he isn’t attacking officers or officials.  He isn’t showy.  But he wants…”

He went silent again, crouched in front of John, and didn’t flinch when John snapped his fingers in front of his eyes.  

“This catatonic thing you do is creepy,” John told him, and carefully levered himself up and around Sherlock’s still body.  ”Maybe it isn’t the officers or the officials or the general public he’s trying to get interested, how about that?”

“Yes.”  It was a whisper, and barely that, but it was more than John usually got when Sherlock entered this state.  He waited for a moment, but Sherlock didn’t add anything or move, so he went to brew some tea.  This could take a while.  And they only had a week left.

***

When it came down to the wire, the police and the White Lotus flooded the streets during the next full moon and tried to catch every available taxi cab.

It made sense.  They couldn’t arrest anyone without proof, and all members of the task force had an alarm that would send a unique radio signal to HQ (and several makeshift satellite stations) if not delayed every five minutes.  They also each had a partner to watch out for them—metalbenders all, following at a distance along the rails set up for pursuit.

No expense or possible volunteer spared, barring the non-police members of the task force.  Sherlock hadn’t taken it well.

“Are you kidding me?” John moaned, staring at the deep holes in the wall.  ”What is this?  What was this?”

“Observe the watermarks down the wall—”

“You fucking ice-daggered the wall?”

Greg was out there, watching out for Sally.  Sherlock hadn’t taken that well, either.  In his opinion, Greg should have been watching out for him, since he would be able to deduce whether or not he was in the company of a bloodbender in no time at all, and move on to the next taxi and target far more quickly.

John went out for a quick bite of dinner with Mike to get away from the moping, and to avoid having to chi-block his flatmate and friend.  When he got back, Sherlock was gone.

But his coat was still hanging in the hall.

“Mrs. Hudson?” John called, staring at the coat.  Sherlock didn’t go out without it; John sometimes thought of it as his armor, or security blanket.  ”Mrs. Hudson, did you see Sherlock leave?”

“What was that, dear?” she called back from her rooms downstairs.  John found her in her kitchen, warming up a cup of tea for herself and another for her friend, a Mrs. Something-or-other John had been introduced to three times, so he didn’t dare to ask her name again.  He simply shared a quick nod and a smile.  ”Sherlock went out, oh, just a moment ago.  Ten minutes, do you think, Marie?”

“Fifteen, twenty, more likely,” Marie said with a shrug.  ”Concentrate, Edna, or use the stove.”

“Patience,” Mrs. Hudson said, and concentrated harder on her firebending.  ”An older man came in to see him, short-ish, but all bundled up.  Didn’t knock or anything, just strolled right in—oh, who could that be?”

The door had opened again, and John went to the hall, to find Mycroft heading for the stairs.  His face was white.  ”John.  Is Sherlock—”

“He’s already gone,” John interrupted flatly, shutting Mrs. Hudson’s door behind him.  ”What are you doing here?  How did you know?”

“A phone call,” Mycroft said, but it was barely more than a whisper.  He blinked twice and looked back at the door, hesitating before he added, “I know where they’re headed. Come with me?”

Too many questions, and not enough time.  John nodded once and followed him outside, only to find Sally, in plainclothes, climbing out of a taxi cab right in front of the building.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, and looked around for Greg.  There was a shadow along the rails, and then Greg dropped, landing easily despite the heaviness of his armor.

“We’re here to check on Sherlock,” Sally said, looking from him to Mycroft.  ”And to let him yell at us for a bit, too, if necessary.  What’s wrong?”

“What did Sherlock do?” Greg added, reaching out as if to steady Mycroft.

“We have to get to Lauriston Gardens,” Mycroft said, seeming to gather himself just before Greg could touch him.  ”Sherlock’s there.  I think—he may be with the murderer.”

“What?” Sally almost shrieked.

“Why?” Greg demanded at the same moment.

“Right, into the cab; let’s go!” John ordered, and started pushing.

***

Sherlock heard the footsteps on the stairs and was sitting upright, cool and collected in his chair, even if he was in pyjamas and wrapped in his old blanket.  The man who walked in without acknowledgement was short, elderly, with the bright blue eyes that showed full-blooded Water Tribe.  He limped to John’s chair and settled himself with a sigh.

“Mr. Holmes,” he said at last.

“What should I call you?” Sherlock asked, steepling his fingers.  He tried not to show his annoyance when the man mimicked him.

“Jeff Hope,” the man said, and smiled, showing his teeth.  It clearly wasn’t his name, but Sherlock wasn’t to going to fight him on it.

“What hope does someone have against a bloodbender?” Sherlock asked, and got a laugh in reply.

“The hope he’s got friends looking out for him, or an ace up his sleeve,” Jeff said.  He sighed again and stood up, wincing a bit as his right leg took his weight.  ”Come on, then.  We’ve got an appointment.”

“Do we,” Sherlock said flatly.  He didn’t move.

Jeff Hope looked at him kindly, and tucked his hands into his jacket pockets—it was a nondescript labourer’s jacket, of Earth Kingdom design.  ”Mr. Holmes, you’re bright enough to know I was putting on a show.  Don’t you want to know why?”

A terrible, icy, itchy feeling raced up and down his spine, and Sherlock licked his lips.  ”Why?”

Jeff shuffled a little closer and said, in a confiding almost-whisper, “Was for you, Mr. Holmes.  All to set up this little appointment.  So you can come along on your own feet, meet the boss with your head clear, or I’ll help you on your way.  But you’re coming along, one way or the other, Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock knew he hadn’t given any sign, but he still wasn’t fast enough—the water he sent in a sharp whip toward Jeff Hope fell harmlessly to the floor as he was caught, pain flaring along every nerve of his body, seizing and trembling and bucking against the iron hold Jeff took on him, bending his blood and making him rise out his chair, gasping and choking in shock and agony.

“I don’t want to do it this way, Mr. Holmes,” Jeff told him, sweeping his arms to the side and moving Sherlock closer to the fireplace, away from the windows.  ”I don’t want to bloodbend you.  You see?  I’m not going to kill you.  I don’t want that, and neither does my boss.  Just come along, and no harm will come to you, or your brother.”

If Sherlock could have moved, he wouldn’t have—he would have frozen, and then rejected any idea that someone could reach Mycroft, let alone harm him.  But how in the hell did he know about Mycroft in the first place?  Who was Jeff Hope?

“I’ll come along,” he gritted out, and was lowered to his feet, and then he collapsed into a trembling heap on the floor.

“Time’s a-wasting,” Jeff said.

***

Lauriston Gardens had been a small set of flats near the river that belonged to a group of Water Tribe fishermen who’d set up a thriving market. It had been one of the bombing targets when the Equalists took control of Republic City, and had never recovered. The flats remained burned out and empty, the walls trembling in the slightest wind, threatening to send the entire structure into the river.

Mycroft stopped the Sato-mobile before they reached the flats, pulling over to park in the shadows. “I was asked to meet them here,” he said, voice soft and dull. 

Greg hopped out of the car first, and retracted his boot to bare his foot. He stomped on the ground and held himself still, eyes closed, and didn’t move for a moment. 

“His range isn’t as great as the Chief’s, but it’s still pretty good,” Sally whispered to John, and when he stared blankly, added, “Seismic sense. He’s looking for Sherlock and the bloodbender.”

“And anyone else who might be waiting,” Mycroft said. “My caller and Sherlock’s abductor are not the same person.”

“You’re sure?” John asked before he could help himself, and shrugged under Mycroft’s sharp glance.

Greg relaxed from his stance. “It’s mostly wood out here,” he said, face tight. “I can’t get a good picture. But there’s a covered dock that way; it seems our best bet.” He stared hard at Mycroft for a moment. “Any chance you’ll stay with the car?”

It was a wonder he didn’t freeze solid at the glare Mycroft sent his way.

***

Sherlock declined to sit, even when Jeff made himself comfortable on an old crate. “This is nice, isn’t it,” Jeff said lazily, and rubbed his hands together. “Bit chilly, but what are you going to do?”

The covered dock still smelled a bit of fish, and Sherlock could see, through the cracks in the heavy plank floor, the river roiling beneath them. The windows were blown out and only some had been boarded over; it would have been very dark, if not for the far end of the dock being open, allowing the obscenely bright moonlight to ghost in.

“The boss will be here soon,” Jeff continued, breathing on his hands. “Your brother, too, I hope. He wants to have a little chat with both of you.”

“Why?” Sherlock asked. His voice was loud and sharp in the still night, shaking a bit with anger. He still felt sick from having been bloodbent, and couldn’t stop rubbing at his arms.

“They went about it all wrong,” Jeff sighed. “You were just a little ‘un during the Revolution, weren’t you? Six or seven?”

“Eleven,” Sherlock snapped.

Jeff wheezed out a laugh. “I’m old, then, aren’t I? That puts Yakone’s trial at, oh, sixty-some years ago?”

All bloodbending came back to Yakone. Sherlock’s mouth set tight.

“I was just a boy then, Mr. Holmes, but I remember.” Jeff nodded to himself, his voice growing softer. “He owned the city. Water Tribe owned this city.”

“The criminals of the Water Tribe,” Sherlock spat.

“We owned it,” Jeff insisted, sitting up straighter. “And we waited. We were sure he’d come back, even if he couldn’t bend anymore; he was still the brains. Still the best.” He made a face. “His idiot brats didn’t even know. One gets himself elected to the Council, the other stirs up a bunch of idiot nonbenders and neither knows the old guard is still here, still waiting. Either of one of them had any smarts at all, Mr. Holmes, and we wouldn’t be here in the dark. We’d be back where we belong, controlling the ports, directing the life of Republic City.” He smiled. “Directing its blood.”

“Yakone’s organisation was never broken up,” Sherlock whispered, suddenly cold. “No. They made arrests--”

“We were a family, Mr. Holmes. We were a Tribe. Family doesn’t forget family.” Jeff sneered suddenly. “And now we’ve got the new boss, brains a-plenty but not family. Not one of us.” He winked one bright eye at Sherlock. “You get in good with him, and you can govern it together. He likes idea men. And of course it’s never too late to start studying a trade.”

“I’m not interested in a life of crime or bloodbending,” Sherlock hissed.

Jeff nodded. “Well, it isn’t up to me to convince you. That’s the boss’s job. And--”

Sherlock saw the shadow at the same moment, and tried to scream as the cold pressure caught him in its strangle-hold once again. His body was lifted and whirled about, and a metal cable wrapped itself around his torso, binding his arms tight. Then Lestrade was crying out as Jeff caught him, hauling him closer.

“You’re under arrest!” Sally shouted, and a wall of flame shot up around Jeff Hope, but her voice had given her position away and he caught her, too, the flames dying out as she was hauled over to where Lestrade was hovering in midair, trembling and gasping in pain. Jeff was on his feet now, moving with a grace he certainly hadn’t had earlier, holding Sally and Lestrade with one hand and catching another whirling figure just before it made contact--

John, caught, held up, meeting Sherlock’s eyes with an apology writ clear in his face.

“What’s this, reinforcements?” Jeff asked, sounding lazily amused. “Or a bodyguard?” He raised his voice. “You here, Mr. Mycroft Holmes?”

***

The sudden rush of water had Jeff swinging John around to block it, and the arc fell apart and splashed to the floor before it could it could hit. But water shot up then through the creaky plank floor and started to form ice up Jeff’s legs, until John gave a short, sharp cry of pain--his arm was being twisted up and around, unnaturally so, putting strain on the elbow to the point of a fracture.

The ice didn’t melt, but it didn’t advance, either.

“Come on out, Mr. Holmes,” Jeff called, anger twisting his face. “There’s more than one here I have leave to break!”

And so saying, he gestured sharply and Lestrade went white, his leg starting to twist horribly.

“Stop!” Mycroft called out, and Jeff grinned like a shark, all teeth, triangulating Mycroft’s position easily. Sherlock forced himself up onto his knees, the heavy cable throwing his balance off, and saw his brother being pulled closer, trembling with pain and instinctual struggle as he was brought into view.

“Mr. Holmes, why did you bring all these outsiders?” Jeff asked wearily, but his movements were slow and strong and easy. “Even if I’d brought my poison, I don’t have enough for three. Though there’s water enough, isn’t there?”

And he slammed Sally and Lestrade together, and slammed John into the floor. Mycroft he dropped like a stone, and concentrated melting the thick ice on his legs. Mycroft pulled more water from the river, drawing it again from the open end of the dock, and was caught in Jeff’s bloodbending once more.

“Just give it up, will you?” Jeff asked, managing to kick one leg free. Sally tried to rush him and was caught and flung back against the far wall, breaking a weaker board. “The boss will be here any minute. One more fight out of you--” he lifted Lestrade, moving him toward the open end of the dock-- “and your policeman is going to take a little dip in the drink.”

He’d never be able to swim with his armor on. Sherlock stared at Mycroft, who closed his eyes, slowly. And dropped to the floor, landing shakily on his own two feet. 

Jeff turned to stare, nonplussed. “How did you--”

Mycroft attacked--another water whip, striking from behind Jeff, which hit when Jeff was unable to catch him again in a bloodbending grip. Jeff barked a curse and dropped Lestrade, just as John rose up with a vengeance to strike at Jeff’s arm.

Jeff caught him, hoisting him up, and then went tumbling as another heavy stream of water hit him. Mycroft tried to bend it into ice, but Jeff took control of it and hurtled it back at him. At this point, Sally bent her signature wall of flame, surrounding Jeff completely.

He bent her again, but John was there, jumping through the flames and hitting up along Jeff’s body and right arm. Lestrade threw another cable, catching Jeff’s other wrist, and holding tight. Barring him from bloodbending. Stopping him.

“You--” Jeff was shaking in anger. “You’re a bloodbender? And you’re working with them? Not with us?”

“Who is ‘us’?” Mycroft asked, his voice shaking. “From where I stand there’s just you. Where’s this boss we were supposed to meet?”

Jeff stared at him for a long moment, and then smiled. It was terrifying, and Sherlock couldn’t say why. “It’s you.” He started to laugh, and it was pained and hateful. 

“Right, can we arrest this jerk now?” Sally asked, striding over. “Mister, you are under arrest--”

“I hope you’re good,” Jeff told her, and Sherlock’s hair stood on end. Everyone’s did.

And then lightning shattered the roof, striking Jeff Hope.

John fell, rolling over to where Sherlock had thrown himself flat on the floor again--lightning started to race along the cable that Lestrade still held, Sherlock could see it, but Sally’s hand was there. She caught the cable and drew the lightning into herself, her other hand pointing up, redirecting the lightning away from Lestrade and sending it back harmlessly into the air.

It lasted no more than a second or two, but the image, the light, was still imprinted on Sherlock’s vision, though he could see clearly that Jeff had been burnt to a crisp.

***

Sally swayed, and John was on his feet, running to catch her, even as Greg retracted his cable and let Jeff Hope’s burnt corpse fall with a hollow thunk on the boards. She breathed out slowly, allowing John to help her settle into a crouch.

“Not doing that again soon,” she croaked.

John looked over at Sherlock, who had struggled back to his knees. Greg unwound the cable from his body and helped him up, looking off into the shadows into which Mycroft had retreated.

He was still there, just visible and utterly silent.

“When were you going to say?” Sherlock asked, stumbling to his feet. The volume of his voice rose. “When were you going to mention that you’re a bloodbender?”

“I wasn’t,” Mycroft said.

“Of course you weren’t!”

“Can we stop fighting and get out of here before the freak lightning storm comes back?” John demanded, helping Sally back to her feet. “I don’t think Sally wants another go at saving our lives.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Sally rasped.

“Let’s go,” Greg said, and strode into the shadows where Mycroft was standing. “Mycroft, are you--should I...?”

“You’re asking me?” Mycroft said, amusement lightening the bleakness of his voice. “You should arrest me, Detective Inspector.”

“You didn’t bloodbend anyone!” John protested.

Sally straightened up, though she was still swaying a bit drunkenly. “He’s still a healer, right? I could use a little help here.” Then she doubled over, coughing, and Greg gestured for Mycroft to go to her. Sherlock turned his back, and only close inspection revealed that he was shaking.

“To the car, everyone,” Greg said. “Please? We have to report this to the Chief.” He sighed. “And then I’ll have to look for a new job. Wonderful.”

“Not before time,” the Chief called out, and they all looked up to see her standing in the doorway to the street. “What have you idiots done?”

***

They’d had to explain everything in separate interviews, and Sherlock’s was the last. He was steered into John’s company immediately afterward, but John was not a stupid man. He walked out with Sherlock and then let him go on his way with nothing more than a pat on the shoulder.

Mycroft was in his study, waiting.

“Explain,” Sherlock said, his voice little more than a whisper.

“I sold my soul to the Council,” Mycroft said, not looking up from his desk. “They have a bloodbender at their disposal, not only to study bloodbending and try to find a way to counter its effects, but to set against any bloodbenders that should threaten the public’s safety.”

“Why?” Sherlock’s face felt hot, and his throat small and tight.

“Because I was a victim of Kaylie, years ago,” Mycroft whispered. His hands, which had been resting limply on his desk, tightened into fists. “She was the daughter and student of Kylyn. I knew the basics of healing, and bloodbending lore. I was able to break to away from her.” He looked up at Sherlock, pale as snow. “I was a natural.”

Sherlock nodded once, and tried to find something--anything--to say.

There was nothing.

“I turned her in, and she turned Kylyn in.” Mycroft swallowed hard, and the gulp was loud enough that Sherlock heard it through the pounding in his ears. “I’ve been working for the Council ever since.”

His brother, a bloodbender.

“Don’t talk to me,” Sherlock said at last, and turned to leave. His footsteps were loud, and his heartbeat louder, but he could still hear the soft, broken sigh that escaped Mycroft’s lungs.

He left, without looking back.

***


End file.
